The New York City street where a veteran NYPD cop spent his childhood was renamed in his honor Monday — five years to the day after he was struck down by a drunk driver while on duty on the Long Island Expressway.
The corner of 42nd Street and 23rd Avenue in Astoria, Queens will now officially be called “Detective Anastasios Tsakos Way,” bringing the 43-year-old married dad of two back home, his widow said during the emotional ceremony.
“This is where Tassos lived when he was a young teenager. This is where he lived when we first met, and where we spent the first year of our marriage,” Irene Tsakos said, using her slain husband’s nickname.
“From this day forward, Anastasios Tsakos will be part of this neighborhood forever,” she continued.
“Every person who drives by or walks these sidewalks will see his name and know that a dedicated officer, a devoted husband and a loving father once called this place home,” she said.
“It stands as proof that one good man left this world better than he found it.”
The father of two — a 14-year veteran of the NYPD and member of the force’s elite Highway 3 Patrol Unit — was responding to the scene of a car accident on April 27, 2021 at around 2 a.m. on the expressway in Fresh Meadows when he was struck head-on by a speeding vehicle.
The drunk driver of the 2013 Volkswagen, Jessica Beauvais, kept on going — but was stopped by cops shortly after and was arrested.
She was high on drugs and had a blood alcohol level of .15 — nearly twice the legal limit — when she hit Tsakos, just hours after she boozed it up during an anti-cop rant on a Facebook podcast.
Beauvais, now 37, was convicted in October 2023 of aggravated manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in death.
She has been serving a 20-year prison sentence at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County.
“It’s a heartbreak that will never be mended, no matter how many streets we name or plaques we hang or helicopters we dedicate,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the street naming ceremony.
“But that’s not why we do those things,” she continued. “We do them in celebration of a life lived with passion, with commitment and with a limitless love for you and everything you built together.
“You and all of Anastasios loved ones will forever be a part of this department.”
